Let's explore two great large-cap technology stocks for investors to consider buying in October at levels that might look like bargains in the not-too-distant future. Now might not be time to call a market bottom, with inflation still clocking in at 40-year highs and the Fed determined to do all it can to drag prices down. Thankfully, investors who plan to own stocks for years to come don’t need to pinpoint an exact bottom and should instead consider slowly starting positions in blue-chip stocks with great fundamentals that should look like steals at these levels down the road.  The S&P 500 is trading at new 2022 lows, with it at levels last seen in late November of 2020. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq is down over 6% in the past two years to trade where it was in the summer of 2020. The market could continue to slide. But investors should take solace in the fact that higher interest rates and soaring inflation are already showing up in corporate earnings outlooks.Wall Street had been waiting for the current economic turmoil to take its toll on sales and, more importantly, earnings before they consider nibbling at stocks again. With the heart of Q3 earnings season set to begin in the middle of October and September’s CPI data due out on Oct. 13, the market might not have to wait too much longer for an even clearer picture.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchEarnings and interest rates drive stock prices and the more clarity Wall Street gains on those fronts, the better. The outlook for Q3 FY22 earnings and full-year fiscal 2023 have already dropped significantly and the 10-year and two-year Treasury yields are responding to the Fed’s rate hikes and projected course of action.The major money managers are rather good at pricing in the future into stock prices, which is part of the reason why Wall Street is often ahead of Main Street, as we saw during the covid comeback and the subsequent beating growth and tech stocks started to take in late 2021 as investors realized the Fed would have to raise rates to cool the economy.The best investors use bear markets and major periods of panic to start positions in their favorite stocks. Just remember the average investor is often the most bullish to buy stocks near what turns out to be the tops and terrified to buy, with a penchant to panic sell, at what might one day turn out to be near the lows. Let’s explore two great large-cap technology stocks for investors to consider buying in October at levels that might look like bargains in the not-too-distant future.Adobe Inc. ADBE Adobe might be the best of the rest when it comes to big tech. Though it is not in the same rarefied air as Apple and Microsoft, Adobe is a champion of a vital segment of the software market with an impressive subscription-based business model that’s helped it post between 15% to 25% revenue growth for seven-straight years. That kind of growth is highly impressive for a company that went public in the mid-1980s.Adobe’s portfolio of subscription software includes Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and many others for a total of nearly 30 rather unique offerings. Its products help users, from Hollywood filmmakers to students, edit videos and images, create artwork and books, and do almost anything else in the larger creative/design world that one might imagine can be done on a computer, tablet, or smartphone.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchAdobe’s documents and business portfolio ranges broadly from PDFs and e-signatures to marketing, commerce, and workflow digitalization. And it’s prepared to expand its reach through its planned, roughly $20 billion cash and stock deal to buy privately held software firm Figma. The little-known company specializes in helping digital creators collaborate through shared software. Figma’s offerings should integrate well into Adobe’s portfolio and provide real benefits in a world where work gets done on individual computers even when people are in the same office.Wall Street is worried that Adobe is overpaying for Figma and sold the stock heavily when it announced the deal alongside its Q3 earnings release on Sept. 15. It is possible ADBE is paying too much at a time when growth-focused tech valuations have been crushed. But it’s difficult to argue with Adobe’s track record and its outlook in an increasingly crowded software market.The post-announcement drop helps set up a potentially attractive entry point for patient investors, with ADBE shares down roughly 30%. The recent decline is part of a larger recalibration of Adobe and other growth names to account for higher interest rates. ADBE stock has fallen 60% from its peaks to below its covid-lows.  Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchADBE’s falling price, coupled with its strong earnings outlook, has it trading where it was before it changed to a subscription model roughly a decade ago at 22.3X forward earnings. Plus, ADBE’s earnings estimates have largely held up in the face of the economic slowdown causing Micron and many others to dramatically lower their guidance.Adobe’s revenue is projected to jump 12% in 2022 and another 13% in 2023 to hit nearly $20 billion to help lift its adjusted EPS by 9% and 14%, respectively. ADBE currently lands a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), alongside “A” grades for Growth and Momentum in our Style Scores system.Analog Devices, Inc. ADI Semiconductor maker Analog Devices expanded its reach to help it challenge the biggest player in the analog space, Texas Instruments TXN, when it completed its acquisition of Maxim Integrated in August 2021. Analog semiconductors are on the less flashy side of the booming chip industry that will remain the backbone of technology and arguably the entire economy for the foreseeable future.  Analog semiconductors play crucial roles in countless devices and industries that next-generation digital semiconductors cannot meet. Analog chips help handle information not easily understood with 1s and 0s, such as temperature, speed, sound, electrical currents, and much more.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchAnalog Devices boasts around 125K customers globally for its over 75K products, which helps provide diversification in a time of economic uncertainty, which is hitting the cyclical chip sector particularly hard. ADI executives project the firm will benefit from continued expansion within six secular growth segments, from connectivity & data centers and digital healthcare to industrial 4.0 and automotive ecosystems.Analog Devices’ revenue and adjusted earnings both climbed by roughly 31% in fiscal 2021, driven in part by its Maxim Integrated deal. Current Zacks estimates call for ADI’s revenue to climb another 63% in FY22 to help lift its adjusted earnings by 46%. ADI is expected to grow both its top and bottom lines next year as well, even as it comes up again difficult to compete against periods.ADI shares have held up far better than its Zacks Semiconductor industry, down 17% in the past 12 months vs. 32%. ADI trades around where it was in December 2020 at roughly $140 per share. And its current Zacks consensus price target offers 38% upside to its closing levels Friday. Analog Devices is now trading right near its decade-long lows at 14.9X forward earnings.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchEarlier this year, Analog Devices lifted its dividend by 10% for its 19th raise in the last 18 years. ADI’s dividend yields 2.2% right now to top many of its peers and the S&P 500’s 1.7%. The company boasts a solid history of stock buybacks, supported by a solid balance sheet. On top of that, 11 of the 16 brokerage recommendations Zacks has are “Strong Buy,” with nothing below a “Hold.” And now might be a solid time to add this chip stock that’s holding up somewhat well as semiconductor names tumble. This Little-Known Semiconductor Stock Could Be Your Portfolio’s Hedge Against Inflation Everyone uses semiconductors. But only a small number of people know what they are and what they do. If you use a smartphone, computer, microwave, digital camera or refrigerator (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg), you have a need for semiconductors. That’s why their importance can’t be overstated and their disruption in the supply chain has such a global effect. But every cloud has a silver lining. Shockwaves to the international supply chain from the global pandemic have unearthed a tremendous opportunity for investors. And today, Zacks' leading stock strategist is revealing the one semiconductor stock that stands to gain the most in a new FREE report. It's yours at no cost and with no obligation.>>Yes, I Want to Help Protect My Portfolio During the RecessionWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI): Free Stock Analysis Report Texas Instruments Incorporated (TXN): Free Stock Analysis Report Adobe Inc. (ADBE): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research.....»»

Canada Has A Food Affordability Problem Authored by Sylvain Charlebois via The Epoch Times, Did you know that there is a global food security index? The well-known magazine The Economist has just published its 11th edition. The Global Food Security Index comprises a set of indices from more than 120 different countries. Since 2012, the index has been based on four main pillars: food access, safety, sustainable development, and affordability. The approach is quite comprehensive and robust. Index indicators include nutritional standards, urban absorptive capacity, food consumption as a percentage of household expenditure, food loss and waste, protein quality, agricultural import tariffs, dietary diversification, agricultural infrastructure, volatility of agricultural production, public spending on agricultural resource and development, corruption, risks to political stability, and even the sufficiency of supply. In short, anything goes. Finland ranks first this year, followed by Ireland and Norway. Canada is well-positioned compared to other countries around the world since we are ranked seventh globally, the same as last year. Not bad. The United States is 13th. In terms of food access—which measures agricultural production, farm capacities, and the risk of supply disruption—Canada ranks sixth, which is not too surprising. Despite our recent episodes of empty shelves and stockouts, Canada can boast about its food abundance. We produce a lot and are part of a fluid North American economy focused on cross-border trade, which allows for better food access. Another pillar focuses on sustainable development, the environment, and climate adaptability. This pillar assesses a country’s exposure to the impacts of climate change, its sensitivity to risks related to natural resources, food waste management, and how the country adapts to these risks. In this regard, Canada is ranked 29th, far behind Norway and Finland, who are first and second in this category. Food waste remains Canada’s Achilles’ heel, as we waste more than just about anyone else on the planet. But with higher food prices, more than 40 percent of Canadians, according to a recent study, are wasting less than they were 12 months ago. When it comes to food safety and quality, Canada ranks first in the world. Canada is ahead of everyone, even Denmark and the United States, both renowned for their proactive approaches to food safety. Food safety in Canada is perhaps the facet most underappreciated by consumers. Despite a few momentary failures and periodic reminders, sanitation practices in the country are exemplary. Canada has consistently ranked well for years, except perhaps when traceability is measured. We have a long way to go, but the industry and public safety regulators are performing relatively well. But the area where Canada’s performance is of some concern is food affordability. This measure is dedicated to consumers’ ability to purchase food, their vulnerability to price shocks, and the presence of programs and policies to support consumers when shocks occur. Canada fell one spot again this year and sits at 25th in the world. Australia, Singapore, and Holland top the list for affordability. Given the resources and food access we have, Canada should do better. Since July 2021, food inflation has always exceeded general inflation in the country, and everything is already costing more these days. Higher food prices at the grocery store over the past year have been difficult for many of us to accept. Canada needs a food autonomy policy, a more robust food processing sector, and better logistics domestically. And with winter coming and our dollar visibly weakening against the U.S. dollar, we could see significant price jumps again, especially in the produce and non-perishables sections. As wages stagnate and food prices rise, it’s hard to predict when Canada will do better in terms of affordability. Specific fiscal measures such as tax reductions to help consumers would be more than timely. Tyler Durden Fri, 09/30/2022 - 20:25.....»»

Despite the current economic climate, and the eye-watering cost of living that has already affected millions of American households, a portion of younger adults are still finding it manageable to thrive financially even as financial anxiety persists. It’s not completely possible to ignore the major economic headwinds many Americans have experienced throughout the year. Skyrocketing […] Despite the current economic climate, and the eye-watering cost of living that has already affected millions of American households, a portion of younger adults are still finding it manageable to thrive financially even as financial anxiety persists. It’s not completely possible to ignore the major economic headwinds many Americans have experienced throughout the year. Skyrocketing inflation has sent consumer prices soaring, leaving consumers baffled over whether they will be able to cope with the increasing cost of living. In June 2022, the Consumer Price Index hit a red-hot 9.1%, the highest recorded in more than four decades. .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Ray Dalio Series in PDF Get the entire 10-part series on Ray Dalio in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q2 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   During the same time inflation was sending warning signs across the economy, motorists were paying on average $4.96 per gallon of regular gas, in some places such as California, gas prices hit a staggering $6.39 per gallon. Fortunately, since then, gas prices have substantially come down in recent months, but have seen going up by a couple of cents in the last few weeks. Pricier goods and expensive gas isn’t the only thing that’s been hurting American households. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) recently hiked its prime interest rate by another 75 basis points, marking the highest interest rates have climbed since the financial crisis back in 2007. Jerome Powell, Chair of the FOMC commented that the Federal Reserve will continue to increase the cost of borrowing until they have managed to push inflation down to its target 2% range. The aggressive rate hikes have been a major headwind for not just more financially secure adults, but more so for the younger generations of Americans who were hoping to purchase their first or second home this year. On the back of this, recent indicators have also revealed that the median rental price has also jumped by 4.8% in the past year. Increased consumer demand as people returned to cities, and higher operating costs have sent rental prices spiraling in the last few months. A Redfin rental report from May 2022 revealed that the median price rental price in the country surpassed the $2000 per month threshold for the first time, with the outlook showing possibilities of further increases in the near future. Americans, young and old are paying more for nearly everything these days, and it’s likely to remain this way for the next few years. As economic conditions uncontrollably deteriorate faster than experts predicted, younger Americans are finding it easier and more affordable to relocate abroad in the hopes of enjoying a more affordable lifestyle. While there are several top countries Americans are considering moving to, for many millennials in the U.S. allied European nations are providing them with more attractive jobs and financial opportunities. Recent statistics indicate that among non-European citizens that currently reside within the European Union (EU) 17% relocated for work purposes, 3% for education, and 39% for family-related reasons. Although there is no direct indication of how many of these non-EU citizens were American-born, it, however, paints a vivid picture of how European nations are allowing migrants better opportunities economically. Where in Europe Are Millennials Thriving? While there are countless well-known cities in the U.S.that can offer millennials a place to call home, many are choosing EU nations that allow them an affordable cost of living, financial security, and access to affordable housing. The onset of remote working and work-from-home jobs has only further pivoted many to consider moving abroad. While the odds may be stacked against them in a foreign country, the stronger dollar to Euro is also slightly helping play more in their favor as they settle abroad. On top of that, some of these countries on our list have favorable tax regulations, and overall can offer a better quality of life, something which many younger Americans are seeking amid the cost of living crisis. Let’s see which European states are the top places where young Americans are thriving. Switzerland For decades Switzerland has topped many lists as one of the most livable countries in the world, offering citizens a high quality of life and first-rate public services. While Switzerland isn’t part of the European Union, it still offers a unique European experience like no other with its picturesque scenery, and easy access to neighboring countries including Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Liechtenstein. Popular cities for expats include Basel, Lausanne, and Zurich, which have been found to be among the best-performing hubs for political stability and urban development. While expats can enjoy better education and healthcare services often subsidized by the government, the cost of living is still more than what the average American could afford. Despite this financial challenge, the multicultural and diverse cities give American millennials a better opportunity to settle and perhaps start a family. Portugal As one of the smaller Western European states, Portugal has been ranked 48th among the 50 major economies in the world. The country has been slowly rebuilding its economy after experiencing major downturns during the first half of the 21st century, and in 2021, inflation was around 1.27%, while the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) registered a 4.7% inflation rate. Like other countries across the world that currently offer remote workers a chance at applying for an Expat Visa, a similar visa allows expats to apply and reside within the country for up to two years. The program allows expats to apply for permanent residency within five years of living in the country, making it one of the easiest routes to European citizenship. Although the country has a lot to offer in terms of public services, such as affordable healthcare and education, the COVID-19 pandemic saw an additional 400,000 Portuguese residents being impoverished due to financial uncertainty. Although there are some challenges that the country will still need to resolve in the coming years, it’s undoubtedly one of the more affordable EU nations which have captured the attention of millennial expats. Iceland Although Iceland is not considered one of the most affordable countries in the world, the country has a lot to offer its residents in terms of public services and recreational attractions. The Nordic nation, which is also known as the land of Fire and Ice, partially due to its active volcanoes, and snow-topped mountain ranges has attracted a small community of expats who are able to afford their way around. Most recent figures revealed that in January 2020, roughly 15.2% of the country’s population was made up of legal immigrants and expats. While the country has a small population of just under 400,000, in recent times it’s become a lot more expat-friendly due to the free movement of people coming from continental Europe and other developed nations. If universal state-sponsored healthcare isn’t something that piques your interest, perhaps the 557 hiking trails, backpacking routes, and numerous camping sites will help decide to relocate a bit easier. Large-scale remote working has also meant that since 2020, the country now offers working-from-home professionals the opportunity to legally reside in the country before having to re-apply for the right to remain. Spain  Ranked as the fourth largest economy in the EU, and 14th globally, Spain has become an international hub for business, tourism, and expats looking to take advantage of the numerous economic benefits the country has to offer. Aside from having a substantially developed economy, the country recently witnessed a surge in international firms being headquartered within its borders, seeing more than 14,600 foreign firms setting up their business in the last few years. On top of this, foreign investors have also found that investment opportunities provide better and more lucrative financial well-being, as the government seeks to provide them with an innovative and progressive workforce. Millennials who reside here enjoy affordable housing, among other economic benefits. There is also a well-functioning healthcare system, and most recent government efforts have seen the country move to improve its tax regulations to attract middle-tier working professionals. Germany Being one of the largest and most progressive economies in the European Union, Germany has ample to offer its residents including universal healthcare, tuition-free schools, and some of the best public transportation the continent has to offer. Industry is one of the country’s strongholds, including automotive, mechanical engineering, chemical, and electrical industries. Like other countries around the world, Germany has been struggling to control soaring inflation which hit a piping hot 10% in September. In an effort to control the rampant running rate at which prices have been increasing, the government has unveiled a €200 billion plan to assist consumers in the fight against the cost of living crisis. Although economic conditions have been tumultuous, the government has been actively working to control uncertainty for residents. The country has a strong workforce and offers ample job opportunities for those in their respective professional fields. If you’re lucky enough to obtain a work or residence permit, it’s definitely worth the effort as many expats have found. The Changing Tide On the bright side, it’s starting to look as if consumers are changing their sentiment in terms of current economic conditions. Recent preliminary data compiled by the University of Michigan showed that the consumer sentiment index increased from 58.2 in August, to 59.5 for the first half of September. While a marginal increment, it remains higher than the 50 recorded in June of this year when the economy started to erode on itself. Although it may still take some time before conditions improve, there is a small enclave of Americans who have been able to thrive in current conditions, as these states not only offer better paying jobs with higher wages, but also a more affordable cost of living. Making a living as an American millennial means that a majority of jobs now offer more competitive salaries, work benefits, and the possibility of working from home or remotely. Although this sounds enticing, millennials are still found to be the most in debt generation in the country, as nearly 73% of them have some form of non-mortgage debt, with the average millennial owing close to $117,000. The high amounts of debt have only further burdened many younger millennials, making it harder for them to properly save for retirement, or put money aside for bigger ventures such as buying a house or property. Again, it comes to show that although millennials may be in a comfortable financial position to some extent, they’re still carrying major debt burdens that will take decades to finish repaying. The Bottom Line While countless factors have made the financial outlook increasingly challenging for millions of Americans, it’s clear that some countries offer them an opportunity to thrive under the current economic climate. With better-paying jobs, booming industries, and evergreen tax provisions, several foreign countries are allowing residents to enjoy a better quality of life even as the cost of living has sent shockwaves across the world. In due time, these and other nations may look to make dramatic changes to the way they attract and retain younger and more skilled workers to help uplift the local economy. Although this may take some time before successfully initiated, it just comes to show that younger Americans are continuously looking for better and more lucrative opportunities, even if this means they need to relocate to a different country. Perhaps this is all temporary, but the future outlook is presenting itself in a completely different way, leaving many young Americans to seek out new ventures that provide them with the financial and social security their older counterparts enjoyed in the decades before......»»

Micron Technologies is a blue-chip tech stock trading at a deep value. The company’s weak guidance may already be priced into the stock.  Micron Technologies has a healthy balance sheet and is well-positioned for a slowdown.  Shares of Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) are down nearly 50% from their post-pandemic highs, driven by the same malaise as […] Micron Technologies is a blue-chip tech stock trading at a deep value. The company’s weak guidance may already be priced into the stock.  Micron Technologies has a healthy balance sheet and is well-positioned for a slowdown.  Shares of Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) are down nearly 50% from their post-pandemic highs, driven by the same malaise as other parts of the market, and now presenting a very memorable time to buy. if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Series in PDF Get the entire 10-part series on Charlie Munger in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues. (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q2 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   Find A Qualified Financial Advisor Finding a qualified financial advisor doesn't have to be hard. SmartAsset's free tool matches you with up to 3 fiduciary financial advisors in your area in 5 minutes. Each advisor has been vetted by SmartAsset and is held to a fiduciary standard to act in your best interests. If you're ready to be matched with local advisors that can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now. At these levels, near $50, the stock is valued at a mere 6X its earnings and this is a blue chip tech stock fundamental to the global economy we’re talking about. Even Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) trades at nearly twice the value and it’s no flashy name itself, not one worth such a large premium in the face of a slumping market anyway. The takeaway is that the shares of Micron are trading at a firm level of support, the company is outperforming expectations, and is well-positioned for the downturn in business and so attractively priced at these levels.  Micron Circles The Wagon Following Mixed Quarter  Micron had a tough quarter but not one without good news although the good news was sparse. The company reported $6.64 billion in revenue for a decline of 19.7% versus last year and missed the consensus by 200 basis points which are not good news. The downturn was driven by a decline in demand versus last year’s pandemically-driven peak that is expected to extend into next year. The NAND and DRAM markets are well-supplied at this time and undergoing an inventory correction that has been brewing for the last two quarters or so.  The margin is also a source of bad news but not quite as bad as expected, which is the good news. The company reported a contraction in the GAAP and adjusted margin at the gross and operating levels due in large part to deleveraging in the face of slowing sales. Operating expenses held relatively flat on a sequential and YOY basis (up in both comparisons but slightly) which cut deep into the bottom line. The good news is that adjusted EPS of $1.45 came in $0.08 better than expected although it is down about a dollar from last year and the guidance isn’t awesome.  Micron is guiding FQ1 to revenue of $4.25 billion plus or minus a quarter billion. This is not only down sequentially and YOY but the weakest quarterly outlook in many years, since well before the pandemic, and more than 2500 basis points below the current consensus. The revenue weakness is going to lead to earnings of $0.04 to $0.10 as well, which is another big whiff. Micron’s Balance Sheet Is Ready For The Slowdown  Micron has a very healthy balance sheet that includes $11 billion in cash and securities and a net-cash position of $4.15 billion which is enough to support the dividend and the buyback plan over the next year with no changes.  As it is, the company bought back $2.43 billion in fiscal 2022 and started paying a dividend. The yield is worth 0.85% but comes with an ultra-low payout ratio and a very healthy balance sheet so there is a positive outlook for distribution increases although maybe not this year.  The Technical Outlook: Micron Moves Up From Support  Shares of Micron gained nearly 3.0% in early trading and look like they may be putting in a bottom. The near-term outlook is bullish but may be capped at the short-term moving average so caution is due. A move above the EMA would be bullish and could lead to a fuller reversal but general market conditions may put a lid on that for the foreseeable future. Longer-term, if the stock can put in a solid bottom a reversal is likely in the back half of 2023 once the memory-chip market restabilizes and production begins to ramp again.  Should you invest $1,000 in Micron Technology right now? Before you consider Micron Technology, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Micron Technology wasn't on the list. While Micron Technology currently has a "Moderate Buy" rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys. View The Five Stocks Here Article by Thomas Hughes, MarketBeat.....»»

For weekend reading, Gary Alexander, senior writer at Navellier & Associates, offers the following commentary: Indexes are setting new annual lows. In my previous column, I predicted (based on the history of mid-term election year markets) that we would likely see lower lows in the fall, if history is any guide. It may happen sometime […] For weekend reading, Gary Alexander, senior writer at Navellier & Associates, offers the following commentary: Indexes are setting new annual lows. In my previous column, I predicted (based on the history of mid-term election year markets) that we would likely see lower lows in the fall, if history is any guide. It may happen sometime in early to mid-October, but then we’re likely to see a dramatic year-end rally – probably starting before the actual November 8 election results are in. After all, markets tend to anticipate news. .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Ray Dalio Series in PDF Get the entire 10-part series on Ray Dalio in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q2 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   Find A Qualified Financial Advisor Finding a qualified financial advisor doesn't have to be hard. SmartAsset's free tool matches you with up to 3 fiduciary financial advisors in your area in 5 minutes. Each advisor has been vetted by SmartAsset and is held to a fiduciary standard to act in your best interests. If you're ready to be matched with local advisors that can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now. Below is a month-by-month look at the last 15 fourth quarters of mid-term election years, since 1962. Going into this study, I thought that the late-year gains would be strongest in November, after the election results were in, but that was not the case. As you can see from this table, the majority of the gains came in October, before the elections. What’s more, October was the best-performing fourth-quarter month in 8 of the last 15 mid-term cycles: There are some interesting stories here. Among double-digit fourth-quarter gains, these four lead the pack: In 1962 (+12.1%), the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved in late October, which gave JFK an election boost. His Party lost only two seats (-4 in the House and +2 in the Senate) after pundits once expected he would lose far more. In addition, November delivered a nice double-digit 10.2% market gain. In 1982 (+16.8%), we still suffered from our worst postwar recession, and the once-popular Ronald Reagan sported a 42% approval rating, but Fed Chair Volcker had broken the back of inflation and was busily lowering interest rates by giant steps, so that delivered an 11% market boost in October. In 1998 (+20.9%), October gained 8% even though President Clinton was subject to impeachment investigations. His popularity soared to 65% and stayed there through the mid-term election, as most people thought the charges were fairly trivial. After the previous 10 Presidents (going back to FDR) had lost seats in mid-term elections, Clinton actually gained 5 House seats and lost no Senate seats. 2010 (+10.2%) is the most recent double-digit gain, when Tea Party voters delivered what columnist Charles Krauthammer called a “restraining order” to the Obama Administration’s ambitious plans. The 2010 election resulted in the largest swing since 1938: +63 House seats and +6 Senate seats. This table from Bespoke Investment Group shows a summary of the mid-term election results since 1946: Will 2022 Be An "Inflation Election" or Will We See an October Surprise? Last April, The Wall Street Journal called the coming mid-terms, “The Inflation Election”. Since then, each time the Biden team says inflation has peaked, some uncomfortably high inflation numbers emerge, partly caused by Biden’s blunders, like limited fossil fuel exploration or pushing more costly electric vehicles (EVs). We are already suffering from electricity shortages, even with a small percentage of EVs on the road. In the last 12 months, through August 31, electricity prices are up 15.8% and utility prices, including natural gas, are up 33%. Groceries are up 13.5%, which is the fastest rise since 1979. Wages aren’t keeping up, as real average hourly earnings are down 2.8% from August 2021 to August 2022, so inflation remains the #1 issue for most voters this year. Each of the past four Presidents suffered a reversal of their Party’s Congressional majority during a mid-term election: Clinton in 1994, Bush in 2006, Obama in 2010, and Trump in 2018 – two Democrats and two Republicans. President Biden has a much narrower margin in both Houses than the previous four Presidents, and he has a low popularity rating, so he will likely suffer the same fate this November. With Democrats barely holding 50-50 in the Senate and 51-49 in the House, that’s the narrowest plurality going into a first-time mid-term, and Biden’s latest approval rating is the same 42% as Trump’s in 2018. The Fed isn’t doing the President any favors. Following the Federal Reserve’s latest hawkish inflation-fighting game plan, we’re liable to see a 0.75% rate increase just six days before the election, so a big swing in Congress this fall – how much is anyone’s guess – is a likely bet. The current real-money odds in Las Vegas are about 6-to-1 (put up $6 to win $1) that the Republicans will take control of the House. The war in Ukraine is important, but out of touch to most Americans. Inflation in food and energy prices – exacerbated by that war (but not caused by it) – are closer to home for most voters. With inflation stubbornly higher than the “transitory” predictions of the Fed last year, and only one more monthly data point to report for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) before the elections, there is not much time for the Biden team to turn around inflation expectations among millions of voters suffering these high prices. There’s always the chance for an October or early November surprise, like a sudden solution to the war in Ukraine, but even in that arena, the blundering Biden team seems more intent on unconditional surrender and regime change in Russia than in negotiations. There’s also talk of more regulations and higher taxes, while flooding the economy with cash-machine, vote-buying schemes like college loan debt forgiveness. Incumbents seldom win re-election for their Party when they take a bustling 6.3% GDP economy down to “stagflation” (zero growth plus inflation), even if they come up with spending plans disguised as Inflation Reduction Acts, so get ready for Gridlock, unless the Biden team can pull a miracle out at the last minute......»»

Stagflation Is "Just The Beginning" For America's Economic Crisis: Peter Navarro Authored by Tom Ozimek and Joshua Philipp via The Epoch Times, Economist Peter Navarro, erstwhile adviser to former President Donald Trump, told Epoch TV’s “Crossroads” program in a recent interview that the current stagflationary downturn stalking the U.S. economy is “just the beginning” of America’s economic woes, and that Trump is the one who’s best poised to pull the country out of a dire slump. Navarro said in the interview that he believes the United States has fallen prey to the destructive force of stagflation—a toxic combination of high inflation and sluggish growth. “That’s what we’ve got now because of the fecklessness of Joe Biden, the Congress, the Federal Reserve, and this administration,” he said. There’s been fierce debate about what led to prices accelerating at their fastest pace in decades, eroding purchasing power, and squeezing American households. Some, including many members of the Biden administration, have mostly blamed supply-side constraints and external shocks like the war in Ukraine. Others, including many Republicans, have pointed the finger at unprecedented levels of fiscal and monetary spending. The inflationary wave that has swelled into a persistent cost-of-living crisis for many Americans was driven mostly by a stimulus-fueled demand surge, although supply-side bottlenecks made the problem worse, a team of economists concluded in a recent study. Soaring inflation, which Fed officials have admitted is far more persistent than they initially believed, has come alongside deteriorating economic conditions. The U.S. economy contracted for two consecutive quarters this year, according to updated figures released by the government on Sept. 29, which meets the rule-of-thumb definition for a recession. ‘This Is Just the Beginning’ Navarro argued in the interview that the United States is already experiencing stagflation—and that it’s going to get worse. “This is just beginning. This economic crisis is just beginning, and it’s going to be as bad or worse and as long as it was during the 1970s,” Navarro said. The dreaded toxic brew of high unemployment and high inflation plagued the U.S. economy for over a decade in the 1970s. America’s unemployment rate doubled to 9 percent between 1973 and 1975, while inflation peaked at around 14 percent in annual terms. Inflation didn’t fall substantially until the early 1980s, and only after the Federal Reserve jacked up interest rates to around 19 percent, leading to two back-to-back recessions in 1980 and 1981–82. In the interview, Navarro offered a lookback on the Trump administration’s economic policies and credited them with low unemployment and low inflation. “What we did was structural in nature, designed to increase the real wages of American workers, the productivity of American workers, the prosperity of the middle class,” Navarro said. “And we did that beautifully through structural elements, not just the traditional Republican tax cuts and lower regulatory burdens, but by securing the southern border, which prevents a flood of uneducated, low-income workers coming in,” he said. Navarro added that Trump’s policies on re-shoring manufacturing and bringing supply chains back to the United States helped boost wages for blue-collar Americans. The economist further argued that bringing back Trump-era policies is key to pulling the country out of stagflation. “I think the only one who fully understands how to get out of that is Donald Trump,” Navarro said. “I don’t see anybody else in the Republican Party who has that kind of sophistication.” His take on the trajectory of the U.S. economy dovetails with remarks made by other economists, who see darkening clouds on the horizon. ‘Stagflationary Debt Crisis’ Economist Nouriel Roubini, for example, who’s been dubbed “Dr. Doom” for his pessimistic, yet accurate, prediction of a financial market meltdown in 2007–08, told Bloomberg in a recent interview that he expects “a real hard landing” for the U.S. economy. Roubini also said he continues to believe that it’s “delusional” for analysts to expect a short and shallow recession, arguing instead that it will be long and severe. In an op-ed for Project Syndicate, he also warned of a looming “stagflationary debt crisis” with “some of the worst elements of both the 1970s and the 2008 crash” as public debt levels have become unsustainable and most of the fiscal ammunition already used. “Things will get much worse before they get better,” he predicted in the op-ed, adding that he believes the economic downturn will come alongside financial market turmoil. Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller said at a recent investor summit in New York City that he’s worried that the economic downturn affecting United States could be worse than an “average garden variety” recession. At the same time, investor pessimism has hit levels not seen since the financial crisis of 2008–09. Tyler Durden Fri, 09/30/2022 - 18:20.....»»

"Full-Fledged Ice Age": Semiconductor Companies Slash Output On Supply Glut Samsung Electronics, the world's largest memory chipmaker, provided more insight into the worsening slowdown for semiconductors and the bust in global PC markets.  Korea Economic Daily reported Samsung "lowered its semiconductor sales forecast for the second half of the year by more than 30%." The newspaper attributed slumping semiconductors demand "as the economy froze due to central bank rate hikes caused by global inflation."  The paper warned: "As the semiconductor industry has entered a full-fledged ice age, there are many forecasts in the industry that the recession will continue until the first half of next year when semiconductor inventories are eliminated."  Earlier this week, Samsung's Device Solutions division said they "lowered our sales guidance for the second half of this year (the company's internal forecast) by 32% from our April forecast." None of this should be a surprise as we recently outlined PC Demand Suffers' Steepest Decline In Years' As Chip Shortage Turns To Glut.  "Both DRAM and NAND flash suppliers and customers are holding too many semiconductor inventories," an official told Korea Economic Daily.  Another top semiconductor company, Japan's Kioxia Holdings Corp, announced it would slash wafer production starts by 30% next month, according to Bloomberg. "The deep cuts stem from weakening demand for computers and smartphones, and the wider semiconductor industry is likely to follow the trend. "Hard times are ahead for the industry, except for a few," said Kazunori Ito, an analyst with Morningstar.  These souring developments in the global semiconductor market come as the largest US manufacturer of memory chips, Micron, reported revenue that missed (despite a slight beat on EPS and margins), but it was the forecast that again was a total disaster.  Micron offered one of the most significant recession warnings so far from a large corporation: "results were impacted by rapidly weakening consumer demand and significant customer inventory adjustments across all end markets." It added that due to the sharp decline in near-term demand, it expects "supply growth to be above demand growth in calendar 2022." "Yes, we have a challenging market environment, but we're responding rapidly with actions ... fiscal 2023 is, of course, an unprecedented environment, but the long-term drivers are intact," Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in an interview.  But it's just not memory chips. We pointed prices of graphics processing units (GPUs) have plunged to their lowest levels ever in China, and chip deflation was already washing ashore in the US.  The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) has fallen 40% since peaking in late 2021, and the weekly 200-day moving average is being tested.  Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported Apple ditched plans to increase iPhone production due to a lack of demand. Weeks ago, FedEx warned that the global economy is "going into a worldwide recession." If both the semi-industry and top shippers are warning about economic turmoil ahead, then it's probably time to start preparing for a possible recession in 2023. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve continues to hike into a slowdown aggressively -- this is a recipe for an epic policy error.  On the bright side, now, or at least in the months ahead, it might make sense to build a computer as it seems components, such as memory chips, GPUs, and CPUs, could be heavily discounted.  Tyler Durden Fri, 09/30/2022 - 18:40.....»»

Opioids At Work: Hidden Scourge Sapping The Economy Authored by James Varney via RealClear Wire, Strung out on drugs half her life, Brandi Edwards, 29, said the longest she held a job before getting sober four years ago was “about two and a half months.” “I worked at an AT&T call center, a day-care center for a month, fast food places, but I had to take drugs to get out of bed in the morning and when I did show up, I wasn’t productive,” the West Virginia mother of three told RealClearInvestigations. “The first paycheck came along and I was out of there.” Fentanyl. Image 4 of 17. United States Drug Enforcement Administration In jail for the ninth time on drug-related charges, and separated from her children, Edwards had an awakening in “looking hard at what I’d lost.” Now clean for four years after rehab, she is married and back in her children’s lives with a home in Princeton, W. Va., and a steady job. But such success stories are too infrequent to offset the massive cost of the opioid epidemic to the American workforce. Only a couple of people in her former addict circle have returned to productive life, she says, while most are dead or incarcerated. That toll on labor, haunting America’s working present and future probably for years -- if not decades -- to come, is largely invisible and underreported because it is difficult to measure, according to physicians, counselors, economists, workers and public officials. But its staying power is suggested by other lasting national challenges, including the porous southern border -- a major conduit for smuggled, Chinese-made fentanyl -- and economic and social traumas set in motion by the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to untold years of productivity lost from fatal overdoses, the nation’s labor participation rate has shrunk steadily since 2000. Precise correlation is elusive, but any graph of that decline would stand in sharp contrast to the rise of opioid addiction in the U.S. And while it is difficult to calculate just how much drug use has caused absenteeism, tardiness and stretches of disability, the connection is strong, as Brandi Edwards’ experience suggests. “We’ve been writing about this for years but it doesn’t seem to get a lot of traction,” said Dr. Gary Franklin, a research professor at the University of Washington who served as the medical director of the state’s Department of Labor and Industries. “People have not realized how much opioids contribute to disability and lost productivity, and I don’t know if anyone has been able to put a number on that.”  Headline figures on lives lost in the opioid epidemic have been fairly clear for years. In 2021, more than 107,000 people died from drug overdoses, a nearly 15% increase from the year before and more than double the grim tally recorded in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control. All told, overdose deaths are seven times higher than they were in 1999. Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which law enforcement has tracked from labs in China along trafficking routes through Mexico on the southern border, are now driving the overdose epidemic. The CDC attributed 69,000 overdose deaths to synthetic opioids in 2020, 82% of the nation's total that year. Heroin overdoses, meanwhile, went up 7% in 2020 to 13,000, according to CDC figures. That means synthetic opioids and heroin dwarf cocaine and methamphetamines, although totals for both of those have been rising for a decade and often cause overdose deaths in combination with opioids. The National Institutes of Health shows fewer than 5,000 people killed by cocaine alone and fewer than 10,000 by what it dubs "psychostimulants," which includes methamphetamines, in 2020.  Less precisely, economists since at least 2017 have pegged at over $1 trillion the epidemic’s annual dollar cost in terms of deaths, law enforcement and “lost productivity.”  But the amount attributable to deaths - $550 billion of the $1 trillion - is largely conjecture because it is derived from actuarial estimates for lost years; for example, the decades cut from what would have been a normal working life for someone who fatally overdoses at age 45. Then there is the less lethal side of the equation -- one that workers and employers grapple with daily. Roughly 8% of workplace fatalities in 2020 - 388 of 4,786 - were attributed to "unintentional overdose from nonmedical use of drugs," according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, the agency said it is unclear "how many of these deaths involved opioids specifically."  A post on a neighborhood social media platform asking about opioids’ dire impact in the workforce unleashes a barrage of firsthand horror stories. Homeowners speak of an inability to hire handymen, painters, landscape workers and the like. “If I’m lucky enough to have an employee that can pass a [urine analysis] the chances of them doing so after the first check is slim,” wrote a tree surgeon in suburban New Orleans. “Tree men get a terrible rap. People think we are all crazy, wild, no fear having, hard working dopeheads.” But he acknowledged some truth to the stories of workplace abuse of prescription opioids, mentioning laborers’ common habit of relying on increasingly higher-milligram dosages of pain pills like Percocet. Workers “didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘Hmmm, great day to go down a road that will cost me it all,’ " he wrote. "Then it’s inevitable. We get hurt. Usually pretty badly. So we start out getting a few .5 [mg] maybe 7.5. Later, as our careers go so does the pain, so do the amounts needed to consume to keep it at bay.” A National Safety Council study reported that more than 75% of U.S. employers have been affected by employees’ prescription drug use, according to congressional testimony, and the National Institutes of Health estimates some 3 million Americans, including workers, are addicted to opioids.  Edwards managed to break her addiction and return to the workforce with the help of Jobs & Hope, a statewide West Virginia placement initiative launched in 2019 that claims more than 1,500 success stories. But with a budget of $3.1 million it cannot handle all of the 200-250 addicts referred to it each month, said Deb Harris, the group’s lead transition agent.  Businesses have been largely receptive to such programs, but the state is still trying to regain its footing from the “flood of pills” that hit it early in the 21st century, according to Dr. Matthew Christiansen, director of West Virginia’s Office of Drug Control in the Department of Health and Human Services. “We don’t keep a running tally at the state level, but the numbers have probably stayed pretty consistent or maybe gotten a little bit worse because of an increase in overdose deaths due to fentanyl,” Christiansen said. The Centers for Disease Control does keep a tally, although it hasn’t publicly updated the grim numbers on its “opioid dashboard” since 2017. The figures from that year show that the biggest economic hit has come in the Appalachian states around the Ohio Valley and in New England, two regions where opioids and synthetics have torn a hole through the workforce. For example, West Virginia, long considered ground zero in the opioid epidemic, had the biggest annual per capita loss due to opioids at $7,247, according to the CDC figures that include overdose deaths. That tops Ohio, where the per capita cost in 2017 was $6,226, and New Hampshire at $5,953. Ohio saw the highest overall economic cost, at $72.58 billion, followed by Massachusetts at $36.91 billion, according to the CDC.  Fixing opioid disorder costs is complicated by the fact much of it is now driven by black-market synthetic drugs like fentanyl and thus can no longer be tracked through prescriptions. Nor is substance abuse a topic that workers - or many employers - are comfortable quantifying. All those involved in coping with the epidemic, however, peg the cost as staggering. “It’s difficult to measure these things but it’s likely a substantial part of the labor decline,” said Michael Betz, an economist at The Ohio State University who researches opioid disorder issues. “You’re piecing together different pieces of evidence, but when you look at the decline in labor participation rates and opioid disorder figures, they match up pretty similarly.” Franklin’s team did calculate the odds opioids influenced the disability bills Washington state taxpayers foot each year for roughly 100,000 workers, a relatively uncomplicated tally since Washington is one of four states with a centralized government system and not a private workers’ compensation insurance market. “We found that two prescriptions of opioids for more than 7 days in the first six weeks after an injury doubled the risk of a worker being on disability one year later,” he said. Answers to broader questions on opioids’ baleful economic impact, however, are scarce. “Productivity losses due to anything is an extremely complex analysis and is not routinely tracked,” Franklin said. To date, the nation's prime age labor workforce has not recovered to where it was at the beginning of 2020 and is now the lowest it has been in 45 years. The hit has been especially pronounced among older adults, according to the Government Accountability Office. Between 2015 and 2019, adults 50 years old or older "were an estimated 22 percent less likely to be in the labor force (either employed or actively seeking work),” a GAO report found. In addition, people in that age group "were an estimated 40 percent less likely to be employed; and employed older workers who misused opioids were twice as likely to have experienced periods of unemployment."  Once again, however, pinpointing the precise connection between opioids and lost productivity remained elusive, as "the data did not allow GAO to determine causality." Middle-aged white men have long comprised the single biggest group of annual overdose deaths, but between 2015 and 2020 the rate among black men skyrocketed to 54.1 per 100,000, topping white men’s 44.2 per 100,000, according to the Pew Research Center.  “Local economic conditions play some part in all this but they aren’t the key role; the main driver is the increase in supply,” Betz said. That leads some experts on the topic to conclude that opioids’ catastrophic hit to the United States’ workforce has been misconstrued. For a time, as deaths rose early on, particularly among middle-aged white men, and labor participation rates began their decline, the phrase “deaths of despair” took hold among some researchers. Under this theory, the opioid epidemic fed on declining economic prospects, particularly for middle-aged white men facing unemployment or shrinking incomes. But the “deaths of despair” theory reverses cause and effect, according to some physicians and people dealing with the fallout from opioids, including their more deadly synthetic cousin fentanyl. “We’ve debunked that,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a faculty member at Brandeis University whose practice has specialized in opioid addiction. “Rather than economic conditions leading to overdose deaths it’s really the other way around - it’s not the economy driving them to death, it’s the opioid crisis affecting the economy.” Tyler Durden Fri, 09/30/2022 - 19:00.....»»

A record infusion of capital funding will become available to arts organizations across New York state in a move that puts the state’s commitment to the arts in line with New York City’s emphasis on the sector, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced. Hochul said the state will make $150 million available through the Council on the Arts’ Capital Projects Fund. The council will direct two-thirds of the money to multiyear funding intended to allow organizations to work on large-scale projects, the governor said. “New York’s powerful creative economy is a crucial driver in our state’s recovery as a global cultural leader,” council Executive Director Mara Manus said, adding that the money was instrumental in underscoring “the critical role these projects play in our economy, our local ecologies and the health of all New Yorkers.”The funding will enable two different grant programs. First, small and midsize capital improvement grants will pay for up to $2 million on projects that “prioritize accessibility, artistry, cultural development, sustainability, health and safety, and structural and historical improvements,” the governor’s office said. The second program is for larger capital-improvement grants, ranging from $2 million to $10 million, to benefit projects that cost at least $4 million. Recipients have to commit to social-equity initiatives and access plans as a way of advancing the state’s diversity and equity goals. The announcement follows two years of relief funding for the arts, from the federal Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, intended to help arts organizations make up for lost 2020 revenue during the early parts of the Covid-19 pandemic. In New York, a $200 million tax credit for musical and theater production is still in effect, as a way to assist theaters in their comeback. The new funding, by contrast, is focused on expansion and sustainability, the state said. “For the past several years, arts and cultural organizations have navigated challenge after challenge, and many are still struggling,” said Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, who represents portions of Manhattan. “It's time for an arts renaissance in New York state.” The application portal opened Friday on the state Council on the Arts website. The deadline for applying is Jan. 12......»»

Highlights for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2022 11.5% Revenue Increase YoY to $27.1 Million 73% Increase YoY in Sales of Intelligent Pet Products 100% Increase YoY in Income Per Basic and Diluted Share 241% Increase YoY in Balance of Cash and Short-Term Investments PLANO, Texas, Sept. 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Dogness (International) Corporation ("Dogness" or the "Company") (NASDAQ:DOGZ), a developer and manufacturer of a comprehensive line of Dogness-branded, OEM and private label pet products, today announced its audited financial results for the fiscal year ended June 30 2022. Silong Chen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dogness, commented, "We continue to benefit from our priority focus of resources on the production and promotion of sales of our higher margin intelligent pet products. With both our existing models and the newly launched models of our smart products, we delivered a 73% increase in sales of our intelligent pet products in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2022, compared to the year ago period. We also continue to upgrade our production lines for traditional pet products to improve the productivity and lower the production costs. This has allowed us to lower our average unit selling price for our traditional pet products, while still maintaining desirable profit margins. Our sales strategy for traditional pet products has helped us to successfully retain our customers and attract new customers, which we have leveraged to increase awareness for our intelligent pet products. To mitigate the impact caused by COVID-19, we expanded our sales channels to more proven online shopping platforms, such as Amazon, Chewy, JD, Tmall, Costco.com, QVC.com and the live streaming sales platforms hosted by influencers, as well as maintaining the existing online and instore channels. These ecommerce sales normally have higher profit margin than traditional sales channels." "With the continued strong demand and pet culture growth in China and worldwide, more and more young consumers have become pet owners. Dogness is well positioned to benefit from this growth, which is serving as a sales catalyst for our intelligent pet products, including App-controlled smart pet food feeders, pet water fountains, pet tracking devices and smart pet toys. In addition, our sales and distribution channel has been further diversified due to the rapid change of technology and lifestyle. Younger generations are more tech savvy and more willing to purchase products from popular online shopping sites, including Amazon, Chewy, JD, Tmall and Taobao, and from live streaming sales platforms hosted by influencers. As a result, we strategically increased our marketing activities and sales efforts in the domestic market, especially on those online shopping sites and channels." "As we look forward we are even more excited about our growth potential led by our continued development of innovative, differentiated pet products and services, which allow us to build strong relationships with our customers, build brand loyalty, enhance our market position, increase transaction size and further enhance operating margins. Taken together, we believe Dogness is on track to further improve our sales, profitability and return on investment for our stockholders in the near future." Financial Results for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2022 Revenues increased by approximately $2.8 million, or 11.5%, to approximately $27.1 million for the year ended June 30, 2022, compared to $24.3 million in the year ended June 30, 2021. The increase in revenue was primarily attributable to the increased sales of the Company's intelligent pet products, which have much higher average selling price than our traditional pet products. Revenue from the Company's intelligent pet products increased by approximately $5.7 million or 73.0%, from approximately $7.8 million in fiscal 2021 to approximately $13.5 million in fiscal 2022, primarily reflecting a higher selling price and increased sales volume. Revenue from traditional pet products decreased by approximately $2.9 million or 20.2% from approximately $14.3 million in fiscal 2021 to approximately $11.4 million in fiscal 2022, primarily reflecting a decreased average selling price per unit. Total sales in international markets increased by approximately $3.9 million or 36.8% to $14.5 million in the year ended June 30, 2022 from approximately $10.6 million in the year ago period. Domestic sales decreased by approximately $1.1 million or 8.3% from approximately $13.7 million in the year ended June 30, 2021 to approximately $12.6 million in the year ended June 30, 2022. The Company has seen a sharp increase in consumer demand in the U.S., Australia, Japan and other Asian countries because of the stimulus plan and the strong recovery of the economy. Sales to the U.S. increased by approximately $2.0 million or 32.4% to approximately $8.0 million in the year ended June 30, 2022 from approximately $6.0 million for the year ended June 30, 2021. Sales to Japan and other Asian countries and regions market increased by approximately $1.7 million or 131.0% to approximately $3.0 million for the year ended June 30, 2022 from approximately $1.3 million for fiscal 2021. Cost of revenues increased by approximately $1.8 million, or 11.8%, from approximately $15.2 million in the year ended June 30, 2021 to approximately $17.0 million in the year ended June 30, 2022. Gross profit increased by approximately $1.0 million or 10.7%, to approximately $10.1 million in the year ended June 30, 2022 from approximately $9.2 million in the year ago period due to the continued upgrading of the Company's production lines for both traditional and intelligent pet products, which led to improved productivity and lower production costs. Overall gross profit margin was 37.4% for the year ended June 30, 2022, as compared to 37.6% for the year ended June 30, 2020. Net income attributable to Dogness increased to $3.2 million or $0.10 per basic and diluted share for the year ended June 30, 2022 , compared to $1.5 million or $0.05 per basic and diluted share for the year ended June 30, 2021. The Company recognized a $3.2 million foreign currency translation loss for the year ended June 30, 2022, compared to a gain of $4.9 million in the year ago period. The Company had a balance of cash and short-term investments of approximately $16.7 million as of June 30, 2022, compared to approximately $4.9 million as of June 30, 2021. About Dogness Dogness (International) Corporation was founded in 2003 from the belief that dogs and cats are important, well-loved family members. Through its smart products, hygiene products, health and wellness products, and leash products, Dogness' technology simplifies pet lifestyles and enhances the relationship between pets and pet caregivers. The Company ensures industry-leading quality through its fully integrated vertical supply chain and world-class research and development capabilities, which has resulted in over 200 patents and patents pending. Dogness products reach families worldwide through global chain stores and distributors. For more information, please visit: ir.dogness.com. Forward Looking Statements No statement made in this press release should be interpreted as an offer to purchase or sell any security. Such an offer can only be made in accordance with the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and applicable state securities laws. Certain statements in this press release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements regarding our future business expectations intended to qualify for the "safe harbor" under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on our customers' businesses and end purchasers' disposable income, our ability to raise capital on any particular terms, fulfillment of customer orders, fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, our ability to realize revenue from expanded operation and acquired assets in China and the U.S., our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, client concentration, industry segment concentration, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, and unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Dogness may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. In addition, please note that any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of the date of this press release. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company unless it is required by law.   DOGNESS (INTERNATIONAL) CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (LOSS) 2022 2021 2020 For the Years Ended June 30, 2022 2021 2020 Revenues- third party customers $ 24,882,618 $ 23,112,435 $ 18,261,707 Revenues – related parties 2,212,579 1,207,686 909,651 Total Revenues 27,095,197 24,320,121 19,171,358 Cost of revenues – third party customers (15,654,952) (14,501,166) (16,146,856) Cost of revenues – related parties (1,301,180) (663,742) (633,132) Total cost of revenues (16,956,132) (15,164,908) (16,779,988) Gross Profit 10,139,065 9,155,213 2,391,370 Operating expenses: Selling expenses 2,077,174 1,815,771 2,336,229 General and administrative expenses 6,742,687 4,941,036 5,746,812 Research and development expenses 917,227.....»»

The latest issue of ‘The Globe’, Eurizon’s publication describing the Company’s investment view. In this issue, a focus is dedicated to “inflation is the culprit.” Scenario Government bond yields on the rise across maturities, most markedly on the short end of the curve, in a context of still high inflation, resilient growth, and aggressive Central […] The latest issue of ‘The Globe’, Eurizon’s publication describing the Company’s investment view. In this issue, a focus is dedicated to “inflation is the culprit.” Scenario Government bond yields on the rise across maturities, most markedly on the short end of the curve, in a context of still high inflation, resilient growth, and aggressive Central Bank actions. Fed funds futures now point to rates peaking in the 4.7% area next spring, from 3% at present, and subsequently dropping back. Similar course for ECB rates, now at 1.25% and forecast at over 3% by mid-2023. These expectations anticipate a drop in inflation and a contraction in growth between the end of 2022 and the opening months of 2023. if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Henry Singleton Series in PDF Get the entire 4-part series on Henry Singleton in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q2 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   The moderation would be welcome, although until there is clear evidence in this direction the Central Banks will not be prepared to slow their tightening process. However, on a positive note, the price of oil has been dropping stably since June, and the natural gas prices have also recently dropped. The outcome of the Italian election was in line with pre-vote expectations. The spread, that had already risen over previous months following the ECB’s change in stance, was subject to no further tensions, neither before nor after the vote, thanks to an election campaign in which euro-scepticism was reduced to a minimum. In China, the economy is reaccelerating after slowing sharply due to the lockdowns imposed in the second quarter of the year, and anticipation is mounting ahead of the Congress of the Chinese Communist Party on 16 October. Macro Economy US inflation is moderating thanks to the energy component, although core items are still rising at sharp rates. The global economy is proving more resilient to rate hikes than expected (for now). Fed fund futures are pricing in further rate hikes worth 170 basis points, with a peak at 4.7% in the spring of 2023. The ECB envisages a further 200 basis points worth of hikes, and a peak at 3.2% in mid-2023. Asset Allocation The autumn should bring signals of a downturn of inflation and/or of a macro slowdown, to the advantage of a stabilization of medium and long-term yields. Overweight position confirmed on the government bonds of the United States and Germany, exposure to stocks lowered to neutral. FixedIncome Overweight position confirmed of US and German government bonds, that could benefit both from easing inflation and the slowdown in growth. Among spread bonds, a preference goes to Investment Grades, while the picture remains uncertain for High Yield and Emerging bonds. Neutral positions on Italian government bonds. Equity Stock market valuations have dropped to historically appealing levels but could be confirmed volatile in case of a sharp macroeconomic slowdown. On the other hand, a swifter recovery could materialize in case of signals of easing inflation. Currencies The Fed’s hawkish turn has widely been priced in by the dollar, that could take a breather in the upturn observed since the beginning of 2021. However, for the euro to recover, the energy crisis will necessarily have to improve. Investment View The baseline scenario contemplates further Central Bank rate hikes, in waiting for more evident signals of an easing of inflation. As the monetary restriction continues, so will the downward revision of economic growth forecasts. In this context, medium and long-term rates should stabilize on fears of a slowdown. However, uncertainty on the resilience of the economic growth should in any case extend volatility on the stock markets. Asset Classes compared Government bond yields on the rise to new year-to date highs. Sharp inversion of the curve in the US, flat curve in Germany. Stocks back down to the lows hit in June. Spreads stable at high levels for peripheral Eurozone bonds and credits (Investment Grade, High Yield, Emerging Markets). Dollar strong against all the other currencies, at 0.98 against the euro. Theme Of The Month - Inflation Is The Culprit The (negative) trend of the markets in the course of this year may be explained by a single variable: the flare up of inflation, a true bane for investors, that have to tackle rising rates and falling stock indices. Going forward, the good news is that inflation is starting to drop. The bad news is that the decline is not enough for the time being to allow the Central Banks to declare victory against surging prices. At least two of the three components of inflation are on the decline. The supply-side bottlenecks that took shape during post-Covid reopenings are easing, as made evident by the drop of international forwarding prices, nonetheless still higher than they were before Covid. Commodity-induced inflation is declining: industrial metals prices have actually been falling since March, the price of oil has dropped below 80 dollars per barrel, after stopping just short of 115 dollars in June, and the price of natural gas, one of the main drivers of inflation in Europe, is also decreasing. However, second level effects are still in place, as price increases are being transferred downstream by the business sectors affected, fueling core inflation. This is the reason for which, at their September meetings, the Fed and ECB not only hiked rates again, by 75 basis points, but confirmed their intention to proceed in this direction in the months ahead. For the time being, near-term Fed funds futures are pricing in yields of between 4.5% and 5% by the spring of 2023 followed by a 100 basis points decline to contain the economic slowdown once inflation will have been reined. The ECB envisages a point of arrival at above 3%. Short-term yields at these levels are already being priced in on the medium and long ends of the curve. In the United States, the 2-year yield has grown to 4.3%, close to the level priced in by Fed funds as the point of arrival. The 10-year yield has risen to 3.8% and, with an inverted curve, is starting to price in the fact that the monetary tightening will not only bring inflation back under control, but also slow growth. In its present configuration, the US curve seems to have reached its maximum inversion (the 10-year yield is 50 basis points lower than the 2-year rate) since the early 1980s. At the moment, the upward movements of the 2-year rate have managed to also drag up the 10-year yield, although the release of weak macro data could result in a further inversion of the curve (as a result of the decline of the 10-year rate). On the other hand, lower than expected inflation data would stop the inversion of the curve, while shifting it downwards across maturities. Similar considerations apply to the euro curve, flat from the 2-year maturity onwards at 3%, the point of arrival envisaged for ECB rates. For what concerns the stock markets, this year’s decline has not been due to endogenous market factors. Businesses have kept achieving earnings growth, and equity return has risen in line with bond rates. The volatility of stocks has been historically low compared to the decline incurred by prices. All these elements support the view that the weakness of the stock markets has been entirely imported from the repricing of the bond markets, in turn destabilisedby inflation. Therefore, the stabilisationof bond rates is essential for stocks. If the upward path of rates is halted by a drop in inflation, the recovery of the stock markets may be immediate and swift. If on the other hand rate hikes are interrupted by a sharp drop in economic activity, the recovery of stocks could be delayed, in waiting to verify the impact on earnings. In this case as well, however, it is reassuring to note that analysts have already started reviewing their expectations, effectively anticipating the potential macro slowdown......»»

Paris, France, 30th September, 2022, Chainwire Starfish Finance, the DeFi project running on Astar Network, has shared its vision of how NFTs and decentralized finance will coalesce on Polkadot. The community-driven project predicts the worlds of DeFi and NFTs will eventually fuse and form a brighter star, with Starfish Finance ($SEAN) serving as the fortress […] Paris, France, 30th September, 2022, Chainwire Starfish Finance, the DeFi project running on Astar Network, has shared its vision of how NFTs and decentralized finance will coalesce on Polkadot. The community-driven project predicts the worlds of DeFi and NFTs will eventually fuse and form a brighter star, with Starfish Finance ($SEAN) serving as the fortress that hosts this union. Starfish Finance is one of many planets orbiting the Astar Network ecosystem, one of the brightest parachains in the Polkadot galaxy. Living on its primary planet is a starfish named Sean, who has vowed to venture into the galaxy and build new castles. The Starfish protocol is based on Balancer v2. It gives users the freedom to create liquidity pools of up to eight different crypto assets on top of a full stack DeFi product suite. Beyond its DeFi capabilities, users can stake NFTs on their native chain through Celer Network’s IM framework, an inter-chain messaging mechanism, to enjoy cross-chain collateralized NFT lending and borrowing. The Starfish Finance protocol has been audited by CertiK and the Starfish team has stressed that the community’s security is their number one priority. The team is now in the process of entering into collaboration with renowned NFT projects to provide liquidity that will empower owners to access capital without relinquishing ownership of their cherished collectibles. Starfish Finance is already listed on Huobi, a major top tier centralized exchange, and the team aspires for more listings which might be announced as the protocol develops. From the beginning, Starfish Finance has positioned itself as a one-stop shop that offers multi-token stable and weighted swaps and embraces a multi-chain future. Starfish started the year with conception, fundraising, forming strategic partnerships, building an inclusive community, and testnet launch. For the rest of 2022, the team will roll out their DeFi suite and refine their NFT collateralized lending and borrowing launch in the roadmap. The eventual formation of Starfish DAO, dubbed The Aquarium, will pave the way for everything that comes next. The community council will be tasked with nurturing different parts of the project, from product to art, and from technology to marketing. Community members will play a big part in onboarding and whitelisting new NFT projects as eligible collateral for Starfish’s NFT-Fi, in addition to managing events and activities to grow the multi-chain Web3 economy. Learn more about Starfish Finance Contact Partnership Lead mars@starfish.finance.....»»

The question many investors are asking is, why haven’t gold and silver rallied this year while inflation runs excessively hot? There are several possible reasons, a few of which are explored below. Currently, gold is outperforming US Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), US and foreign bonds, the NASDAQ, S&P 500, foreign stock, and a basket of […] The question many investors are asking is, why haven’t gold and silver rallied this year while inflation runs excessively hot? There are several possible reasons, a few of which are explored below. Currently, gold is outperforming US Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), US and foreign bonds, the NASDAQ, S&P 500, foreign stock, and a basket of foreign currencies. So far, the biggest challengers to gold have been commodities and the US dollar. if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Henry Singleton Series in PDF Get the entire 4-part series on Henry Singleton in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q2 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   Find A Qualified Financial Advisor Finding a qualified financial advisor doesn't have to be hard. SmartAsset's free tool matches you with up to 3 fiduciary financial advisors in your area in 5 minutes. Each advisor has been vetted by SmartAsset and is held to a fiduciary standard to act in your best interests. If you're ready to be matched with local advisors that can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now. As of today, the gold spot price has fallen 5% year-over-year (YoY) but is faring way better than the majority of asset classes. If you hold some gold in your portfolio, it should be hedging fairly well against those losses. The Greenback The US dollar gained strength against other currencies and assets in 2022, despite high inflation. Even though the dollar is at a 20-year high, it doesn’t mean the dollar isn’t losing buying power. So far this year, the average American household has spent $5,200 more on a basket of goods than they did in 2021. That means an average American has to fork out over $433 a month extra if they want to maintain the same living standards as they did the year before! Overall, the dollar’s purchasing power is significantly lower year-over-year. So, when you hear that the dollar is strong, it is being compared to a basket of leading currencies. That’s because other currencies are suffering due to rapidly shrinking economies and loose monetary policies. Forex Earlier this week, the British pound fell to a record low of $1.03 against the US dollar. Then it slightly rose to $1.07. This crash followed an announcement by the British government stating that they will implement the largest tax cuts in 50 years. The British economy is facing high inflation rates and even higher government borrowing. This has led many investors to speculate about a complete economic crash in the UK is becoming more probable. The Japanese yen, Chinese yuan, and EU’s euro have also lost significant value against the dollar and gold. All of these currencies are weaker against the dollar because their corresponding central banks have been hesitant to increase interest rates and tighten their monetary policies. However, these financial bodies are starting to change their tune, with the Bank of England and the European Central Bank beginning to increase interest rates. This will challenge the US dollar’s dominance once the Fed reaches its interest rate ceiling. The Fed can only raise rates to a certain point because the cost to service the country’s debt would become unsustainable. At that point, the dollar would regress. That’s when many analysts predict that gold will begin to gain against the dollar. Gold is Still Holding Strong Although gold has not reached the record highs that many have predicted, the metal is doing better than expected. According to the World Gold Council (WGC), gold should have fallen by 30% due to interest rates and a stronger dollar. Clearly, that is not the case. Gold has remained fairly stable. The WGC stated the following: “The fact that gold has performed as well as it has, all things considered, is a testament to its global appeal and more nuanced reaction to a wider set of variables.” While geopolitical problems and inflation increase across the world, institutions will continue to purchase gold as a safe haven......»»

The move puts an end to the social media giant’s years of rapid growth and expansion Meta Platforms Inc., the owner of Facebook and Instagram, said it will freeze hiring and restructure some teams in an effort to cut costs and shift priorities, putting an end to the social media giant’s years of rapid growth and expansion. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg announced the company’s freeze on Thursday during a weekly Q&A session with employees, according to a person in attendance. He added that the company would reduce budgets across most teams, even those that are growing, and that individual teams will sort out how to handle headcount changes. That could mean not filling roles that employees depart, shifting people to other teams, or working to “manage out people who aren’t succeeding,” according to remarks reviewed by Bloomberg. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now, but from what we’re seeing it doesn’t yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively,” Zuckerberg said. A Meta spokesperson declined to comment. Read More: ‘Only the Paranoid Survive.’ Some CEOs Are Cutting Staff Even as the Labor Market Booms Meta stock, which was already trading down to start the day, fell further on the news, down 4% from Wednesday’s close. The shares are down more than 40% so far this year. The further cost cuts and hiring freeze are Meta’s starkest admission that advertising revenue growth is slowing amid mounting competition for users’ attention. It’s not an ideal time to be cutting; besides economic pressures, the company’s advertising business is less efficient due to new privacy restrictions from Apple Inc. on tracking iPhone users. TikTok is attracting a younger demographic away from Instagram. And Zuckerberg is making an expensive bet on the metaverse, an immersive virtual reality future where he imagines people will eventually communicate, an effort he has said will lose the company money for many years. Read More: What Mark Zuckerberg Revealed About His Metaverse Plans Meta said earlier this year that it was planning to slow hiring for some management roles, and had postponed handing out full-time jobs to summer interns. The freeze was necessary because “we want to make sure we’re not adding people to teams where we don’t expect to have roles next year,” Zuckerberg explained Thursday. Zuckerberg had warned in July that that Meta would “steadily reduce headcount growth,” and that “many teams are going to shrink so we can shift energy to other areas.” Priorities internally include Reels, Meta’s TikTok competitor, and Zuckerberg’s metaverse. Meta had more than 83,500 employees as of June 30, and added 5,700 new hires in the second quarter. Zuckerberg said Thursday that the company would be “somewhat smaller” by the end of 2023. “For the first 18 years of the company, we basically grew quickly basically every year, and then more recently our revenue has been flat to slightly down for the first time,” he told staff. Read More: Why Frances Haugen Is ‘Super Scared’ About Facebook’s Metaverse During its first-quarter earnings call, Meta said annual expenses would be roughly $3 billion lower than initially projected, trimming an estimated range that had been as high as $95 billion. In prior moves to reduce spending, a dual-camera watch the company was building to compete with the Apple Watch was shuttered. Meta is not the only advertising company to be hit by broader economic challenges. Twitter Inc. enacted its own hiring freeze back in May, and has been asking employees to watch their expenses and reduce travel and marketing costs. Alphabet Inc.’s Google, too, said that it would slow hiring during the back half of the year, and Snap Inc. cut 20% of its workforce in August......»»

Energy prices were the main culprit, rising 40.8% over a year ago, according to September's reading by Eurostat. FRANKFURT, Germany — Inflation in the European countries using the euro currency has broken into double digits as prices for electricity and natural gas soar, signaling a looming winter recession for one of the globe’s major economies as higher prices undermine consumers’ spending power. Consumer prices in the 19-country eurozone rose a record 10% in September from a year earlier, up from an annual 9.1% in August, EU statistics agency Eurostat reported Friday. Only a year ago, inflation was as low as 3.4%. Price increases were beyond what market analysts had expected and are at their highest level since record-keeping for the euro started in 1997. Energy prices were the main culprit, rising 40.8% over a year ago. Food, alcohol and tobacco prices jumped 11.8%. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “I’m already looking a lot more for special offers,” said Myriam Maierhofer, a 64-year-old trainer and coach for staff development, who was shopping Thursday at weekly outdoor market in Cologne, Germany. “I don’t throw away so much so quickly, so I’ve become more economical with food. And this morning, I also turned down the heating in the rooms again.” Inflation has been fueled by steady cutbacks in supplies of natural gas from Russia and bottlenecks in getting supplies of raw materials and parts as the global economy bounces back from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Russian cutbacks have sent gas prices soaring to the point where energy-intensive businesses such as fertilizer and steel say they can no longer make some products at a profit. Meanwhile, high prices for utility bills, food and fuel are leaving consumers with less money to spend on other things. That is the main reason economists are predicting a recession, or a severe and long-lasting downturn in economic activity, for the end of this year and the first months of next year. The European Central Bank is raising interest rates to combat inflation by keeping higher prices from being baked into people’s expectations for wages and prices, it but can’t by itself lower energy prices. Friday’s inflation reading was likely to be a matter of “grave concern” for the ECB, said Jessica Hinds, senior Europe economist at Capital Economics. She said the central bank’s rate-setting council was likely to raise its benchmark rates by an outsized three-quarters of a percentage point at its next meeting Oct. 27. Higher interest rates make it more expensive for people and businesses to borrow, invest and spend, dampening demand for goods and thus restraining inflation. Inflation is far above the ECB’s goal of 2% considered best for the economy. Central banks around the world are rapidly raising rates, led by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which is aiming to bring down inflation that hit 8.3% in August. Eurozone inflation has eclipsed the United Kingdom’s 9.9% registered last month. European officials call the natural gas cutbacks from Russia energy blackmail aimed at pressuring and dividing European governments over Western sanctions and their support for Ukraine. Russia blames technical problems. The rising gas prices that have resulted mean higher heating bills and higher electricity costs because natural gas is used to generate power, heat homes and run factories. European Union energy ministers on Friday adopted a windfall levy on profits by fossil fuel companies and other measures to ease the energy crisis, while individual countries also have allocated hundreds of billions to provide relief to households and businesses. With consumer prices in Germany rising by 10.9%, hitting double digits for the first time in decades, the government announced plans to spend up to 200 billion euros ($195 billion) to help with surging gas bills in Europe’s largest single economy. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Thursday that the government was reactivating an economic stabilizing fund previously used during the global financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. Christian Schrader, 35, who was shopping at the market in Cologne, was less worried about food prices but said that “you start to think about which rooms need to be heated in the flat and try to explain to the children that we only play in one room.” A bigger worry was “the social dimension,” he said. “Inflation has often been a driver for social division, for extreme tendencies, for populism. This dimension worries me more.” ___ AP reporter Daniel Niemann contributed from Cologne, Germany......»»

Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC exclusive interview with Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) Chairman & CEO James Gorman on CNBC’s “Mad Money” (M-F, 6PM-7PM ET) today, Thursday, September 29. Interview With Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman Part I JIM CRAMER: Ever since James Gorman took over in 2010, Morgan Stanley’s stock is up more […] Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC exclusive interview with Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) Chairman & CEO James Gorman on CNBC’s “Mad Money” (M-F, 6PM-7PM ET) today, Thursday, September 29. Interview With Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman Part I JIM CRAMER: Ever since James Gorman took over in 2010, Morgan Stanley’s stock is up more than any of the other major banks. More importantly, Gorman knows the industry better than anyone and that’s why I’m so thrilled to speak with James Gorman, the Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley to get a better sense of this moment. Mr. Gorman, welcome to “Mad Money.” if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Henry Singleton Series in PDF Get the entire 4-part series on Henry Singleton in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q2 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   JAMES GORMAN: Hey Jim, great to be here. Thank you. CRAMER: I cannot think of someone I want more on this show than you right now James not because I want hand holding. But I'd like rationality. You lived through bull and bear markets. A lot of people feel this bear market will never end. What's your historical perspective? GORMAN: Well, firstly, I've seen a lot of markets. I think you have to look at what drives the change in sentiment. And to me, I'm just not surprised. What do we expect? We've got a war in the Ukraine. We've got inflation at the highest we've had for 40 years, we've got the Fed moving aggressively on rates having done nothing for 10 years. Rates have been zero. The market is awash with money. What did we expect? So you've had the bubbles that have been out there, the SPACs, the cryptos and so some of them are getting washed out. So it's not totally surprising where we are. That's where I start from. CRAMER: If that's the case then we hear the Fed talking tough, it should talk tough and it should take tough action. GORMAN: Listen, you can't have free money forever. Of course, you you'll end up with an imbalance. I mean, it's all about GDP growth and interest rates and the Fed tries to moderate that about I think half the times that they've tightened in the last 30, 40 years, they've overshot a little bit. But half the times they haven't so we're in we're in that zone and everybody obviously is making the bet whether they've overshooting gonna push us into a serious recession, whether we're going to have a mild recession, whether we're going to have a soft landing, or we're going to get perfection, and that remains to be seen. CRAMER: And what does James think? I like your view. You know more than almost everybody I speak to you. GORMAN: Yeah, well, I think I think it's unlikely that we're gonna have a hard landing at this point. I think the Fed will keep pushing. I mean, we're, we're at a little over 3% now. They'll probably end up at you know, 4.5, 4.75%. Listen, we’re totally in between inflation, unemployment and rates. And my sort of nirvana scenario for now would be 4, 4 and 4. Get inflation back to 4%, bring rates up to 4% and have unemployment which is slightly below four. It'll tick up a little bit. That’s nirvana. We probably won't get that. But I don't I don't think I don't see yet enough to tell me this is a real crisis. Geopolitical issues aside, that could tip things very differently. Obviously, if I'm wrong about the Fed’s ability to tame inflation, that tips things differently. So there, there are reasons to be concerned. Clearly, the market is not stupid. The market reflects that. So we've got to respect the market. But and we've got an inverted yield curve at the moment. So there's a lot going on. But I personally am not seeing the sort of very dark crisis we've seen through my career. CRAMER: Well, that's really important because I’ve studied your career and I recognize that if you felt that it wasn't worth staying the course, you would actually say it. You would say, you know what, Jim? It's actually not a bad idea to sell a lot of stock here. I'm not hearing that. GORMAN: And I'll also tell you, I’ve watched the behavior. We're dealing with 15 million clients through their places of work, through E*TRADE platform, which I'm sure we'll talk about, through our wealth management advisors, we're managing over $4 trillion. And with our asset management business, wealth and asset together, nearly 6 trillion. I'm not seeing panic in there. This is not ’87, it's not even ’91. It's not the dotcom crash, and it's certainly not the financial crisis. That doesn't mean it can't become one of those, but it's not there yet and behavior supports that. CRAMER: Well, we are going to talk about how you have really revolutionized the firm in a way that, you know, I'm, I think you’re the best at but before we get to that, it sounds like to me that if we don't get nirvana, even if we don't get nirvana. We're still not in a situation like a 2007, 2009 where Morgan Stanley was, you know, 11, 10, 9 and I was concerned about the viability of a lot of the firms. That's not going to happen. GORMAN: Well, there are two things that are very, very different from frankly, all those crisis periods I've talked about. The first is the bank's capital and balance sheet. These, the US banks and okay, I'm talking my own book but on behalf of our peers, the G-SIBs, the globally systemic banks are in the best shape financially they've been in in decades as a group, different business model issues, etc. But as a group from a capital liquidity perspective going into a crisis, you want your financial system and you want your call backs, banks to be strong and they are. Secondly, consumers, they refinance a lot of their mortgages. They had the luxury of very low rates for a long time, they saved during Covid, consumers coming into this with their personal balance sheet better. Those two things are very different from some of the other periods we've had the last 20 years. CRAMER: Now, what are you looking for to see that perhaps the Fed might be done? What has to happen? Does unemployment have to go to five? I mean you talk about 4, 4, 4 but when I listened to Loretta Mester today, very important Fed member. I felt like that a lot of the work that we've done toward slowing inflation really didn't mean much then that they're not happy at all with how this economy but wages are too high. Homes are too high. They're not happy with how they are cooling things. GORMAN: Well listen the Fed’s got a ways to go. I mean, we might have another 75. We're about you know, again, a house caller is 75 followed by 50 followed by 50. I felt for a long time the Fed was very late. I said I'd be like a squirrel. I like putting a few nuts away because you never know when you're going to need them. Right so we didn't do that. Covid obviously delayed that, the Ukrainian, Russian Ukrainian war delayed that. There are reasons why the Fed didn't act so I understand it, you know, I accept it. But now they've got to move aggressively. So they're, in my view, going to be less concerned about whether we tip into a mild recession than they are about taming inflation, which if they don't, creates all sorts of havoc. CRAMER: All right, well, what we're doing when we come back, we'll talk about your amazing wealth advisory business, what you're telling people and how you've reinvented the firm, because I can tell you that you're the largest financial wheel in my trust and there's a reason because of your leadership. GORMAN: Thank you. CRAMER: “Mad Money” will be back after the break with James Gorman, CEO of Morgan Stanley. Part II CRAMER: We’re back with James Gorman. He's the Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley, the investment bank I like so much that I own it for my charitable trust. Let's get right back to it. James, you have reinvented this firm. I remember the Morgan Stanley that I applied to was kind of, let's say a trade ‘em wamma jamma firm. Your company is now the premiere wealth advisor company in the world. How were you able to do that? GORMAN: Well, what firstly, we had a view. You got to start with a point of view and the view was that a separate trading banking business on its own was much less attractive because of its volatility to investors. So we needed some annuitize fee business. We had it in the old Dean Witter business and a smaller asset management, but they weren't at scale. So the view was is we knew what the answer was, but we had to get to scale. So we bought Smith Barney back in 2009. We bought E*TRADE, we bought Solium, we bought Eaton Vance, we bought Mesa West. All of these were building blocks to get us to scale so it was it was actually very simple concept. Executing it required, you know, we had to we had to make some calls and some people thought we overpaid for some of those assets. I don't think so anymore. CRAMER: But they're these are assets that are sticky. GORMAN: Yeah. CRAMER: And they go up, up, up. The old days, you were what I regard as an episodic firm. Those days are now past. GORMAN: Well, I think it's all about stability. I mean, if you look at the wealth businesses, which generate, you know, roughly $6 billion a quarter for the last couple of years, look at those businesses, they they don't move very much in their daily numbers. I mean, plus or minus 5 million on 100 million, so incredibly stable, sticky, but also stable when you've got them and we love that. But then you've got the investment bank, which is like a turbocharger. When the markets are good, the bank is doing phenomenally. CRAMER: But at the same time, people all lump these together. They say you have investment banking, investment banks doing poorly, so why don't we just sell the stock down? It's not any different from the way it used to be. That's just not a fair characterization. GORMAN: Well, it's honestly just not looking at the numbers. I mean, some people have looked at and said because of the investment banking market and capital markets market at the moment, which is tough, right? Because of that, these stocks are much less attractive. I say, seriously? Take a look at what percentage of the revenues that we're we have that are tied up in those kinds of activities that are depressed right now. By the way, they're delayed, they're not shut down. CRAMER: Right. GORMAN: They're gonna happen, companies will go public, deals will get done. So I'm not concerned about at all. I think, you know, where the stock is trading in this environment obviously I feel very good about what we're doing. CRAMER: Well obviously because you've been buying back more stock than anybody else and you've been returning nice dividend. You've got the best in the group. GORMAN: And we're retiring, we’ll retire, you know, 6, 7% of the stock this year, and we've got a dividend yield of 3.5%. So shareholders are getting a nine plus percent return without getting out of bed. It's not bad, right? So I feel very good about the position. We should bring the share count down. We started after the E*TRADE around 2 billion shares outstanding. And, you know, then you're paying smaller dividends because you're not paying dividends on the shares you retire. CRAMER: Now, there was a time when if you told me that Morgan Stanley was going to own E*TRADE, I said I would say are you kidding me? But it turns out that the wealth is in Solium and E*TRADE, that's where it starts. You are going for the long haul. These are people who if they say well, we'll become the premium wealth clients for the next 20 years. GORMAN: Well and just give a call out to E*TRADE, they just got rated the number one online brokerage business yesterday just which is great. Now listen, we we owned the financial advisor piece. Second leg, we needed to own the direct piece Schwab Ameritrade phenomenal companies Fidelity we needed to be in there we could build it or we could buy it. We bought a E*TRADE. Third leg, we want to own or at least be one of the top two competitors in the workplace with Fidelity and through Solium and E*TRADE. We’ve got that so we're now managing something like 30, 35% of S&P stock plans in this country. So if you've got all three legs, you're getting people through advisors, you're getting them through trading online, and you're getting them through their workplace, you can provide incredible capability to them because you're amortizing it across a huge, fixed costs based on revenues. CRAMER: Now, you're not getting away entirely from risk. We know it's difficult. I know you can't talk about any individual clients but you've got a big one, Elon Musk, and he may end up owning Twitter. And you could be on the hook for that. Is that true or not? GORMAN: Well, I think you said it. I can't talk about it, Jim. CRAMER: But we don't want you on the hook. The shareholder doesn’t want you on the hook. GORMAN: Do I look distressed right now. CRAMER: No. GORMAN: Okay, that's all I’ll say. We'll see how this plays out. CRAMER: Well, I like, I like that attitude. Now if you were with your wealthiest clients, what do you say that's different from the clients who aren't that wealthy, who want to be wealthy. GORMAN: Well, the clients who aren’t wealthy should you know what I've been worried about the last few years is the number of people who have been speculating in crypto, but, you know, it's fine if you bought it at 600 and it’s and it’s at 20— CRAMER: But do you believe in it? GORMAN: People are buying, listen, I think it's it's an asset. It's a speculative asset by definition. I don't think it's a new form of stored value. I think it's subject to a lot of regulatory risk— CRAMER: Do you own any? GORMAN: No, I don't own any. I wish I bought it at $60— CRAMER: Of course we all do. GORMAN: But I didn't buy it at 60,000 so what I've been worried about and what I've seen a lot of individual investors is that they got caught up in the hype. We've seen this before, the .com. We saw this in the early 90s and you know, ‘87 with a Black Monday crash and so on. So my worry for that group is listen, your job is not to speculate. It's to build long term wealth for stability. The very wealthy person completely different. They can put 1% of their money on anything. They can put on resources, put on crypto, put it on whatever they like, that's fine, that's no risk because they can afford to lose that. So completely different focus. CRAMER: How about the young, we have a lot of young watchers 25, 30. Isn't this a time to start? The market is so nowhere near its top. GORMAN: You know, Australia has a scheme called the superannuation scheme where government mandated, you save 15% of your income. Right and it's created these huge sovereign wealth fund asset pools in Australia. If there's one thing I could tell every 22-year-old person starting a job, maybe they can't save 15%, but save five and the compounding impact of putting money into the market, maybe start with an index just get in the market. It's all about duration. You're in the market for 50 years, it's better than 30, it's a whole lot better than 10. CRAMER: One last question. James Gorman is a little bit close to me in age. Can you stay longer? How much longer do you want to stay? GORMAN: Well, I I truly believe in in succession planning and I've been very clear with the board. But you know, these organizations do best when you regenerate and provide growth and part of that is giving opportunities to people. So we've got a plan. I won't give you the date right now. But no, I'll step down at the right moment. CRAMER: Alright fair enough. GORMAN: But I will step down and we’ve got a great team to follow me. CRAMER: Well, I'm sure you do— GORMAN: But it’s not today. CRAMER: But you've done the best in the group. And it's, I know you have great team, but I'm looking at the top of it. GORMAN: Thank you. Thanks man. CRAMER: Okay. That's James Gorman, Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley. Thank you so much, James. GORMAN: Thank you. CRAMER: Good to talk to you. "Mad Money" is after the break......»»

In his podcast addressing the markets today, Louis Navellier offered the following commentary. If you wish to listen to this commentary, please click here. Officially In Recession The Commerce Department on Thursday made its third and final revision to second-quarter GDP. Officially, the U.S. is in a recession, since GDP contracted at a 0.6% annual […] In his podcast addressing the markets today, Louis Navellier offered the following commentary. If you wish to listen to this commentary, please click here. Officially In Recession The Commerce Department on Thursday made its third and final revision to second-quarter GDP. Officially, the U.S. is in a recession, since GDP contracted at a 0.6% annual pace in the second quarter. if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Henry Singleton Series in PDF Get the entire 4-part series on Henry Singleton in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q2 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more   Although Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen initially blamed inventory depletion for the second quarter GDP contraction, she has been conspicuously silent recently. This is probably because Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is now being blamed for causing the U.S. to slide into a recession, so the heat is off Treasury Secretary Yellen for now. Nonetheless, all the recession talk amidst higher interest rates basically insures a big change in Congress in the upcoming midterm elections. Powerful Fed The Fed is very powerful right now. The Fed is on track to increase interest rates 75 basis points six days before the midterm elections. That's certainly going to swing the elections. People are upset because mortgage rates are at 7% this week. The Fed is on a mission to kill inflation but they're going to kill certain parts of the economy along the way. The Labor Department on Thursday announced that initial claims for unemployment declined to 193,000 in the latest week, down from a revised 209,000 in the previous week. Continuing unemployment claims declined to 1.347 million, down from a revised 1.376 in the previous week. Clearly, the labor market remains healthy, but Hurricane Ian is expected to distort next week’s unemployment statistics. The big news emanating from Germany is the German government is going to issue some bonds because they are in an "energy war" and they basically want to issue these bonds to cap energy prices. Apparently, they're going to have to pay market rates for energy, and it's going to be politically intolerable so they're going to issue bonds to make up the difference. There is a war in Europe and it is being fought with energy, which is incredibly bullish for our energy stocks. Basically, all the surplus US natural gas has to be shipped to Europe. The supply-demand balance for crude oil remains very precarious right now. This is the time of year when demand drops because there are more people in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere. There's also a lot of refinery maintenance going on. The hurricane has curtailed production temporarily in the Gulf of Mexico which caused refineries to shut down briefly. So, crude oil prices are trying to pull back a bit today. And a lot of energy stocks are having some consolidation after surging the last couple of days. Yesterday's big rally was sparked by the Bank of England reinstituting quantitative easing, while our Fed is doing the opposite which is shrinking their balance sheet. The perception was the Fed would have to follow the Bank of England but there is no evidence of that right now. So Wall Street is having a rethink, for lack of a better word. The 10-year Treasury yield is up today. The bond market continues to jerk the stock market around. Essentially, the bond market is the tail that is wagging the dog. This is what happens when the Fed tries to reduce its balance sheet. No Bad News Allowed Yesterday, there was a lot of short covering and that's important because that's how markets put in lows and bear markets end. This is the end of the quarter when there is usually a flight to quality. As we go into October, it's all going to be about the third-quarter earnings announcements. I believe they are going to be negative. The strong dollar hurts multinationals and you can see what is happening with Apple right now. They are being punished because of their comment that the iPhone 14 sales weren't as strong as expected. Apple was trying to move production to India and that has been postponed temporarily because the demand wasn't as anticipated. So, companies can't have any bad news out there. They have to have strong sales, strong earnings, and good guidance. We're going to have a very narrow market as earnings come out, and it's going to be every stock for itself. Coffee Beans Hurricane Ian was classified as a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, exhibiting wind speeds of up to 150 miles per hour. Category 5 starts at a wind speed of 157 miles per hour, making Ian a hurricane at the upper threshold of category 4 and the fourth-strongest to ever hit Florida together with Hurricane Charly in 2004 (also 150 mph). Source: Statista. See the full story here......»»

"A fixed price cap on gas can only work if we answer the question of what happens if not enough gas comes to Europe," Germany's economy minister said. Flags of European Union member countries.Shutterstock.com The EU will try to implement a "price corridor" as talks of a price cap on natural gas ended without an agreement. Just 15 of 27 nations approved the price cap, but the bloc needs unanimous approval to pass the measure. Opponents say that the price cap could prevent some nations from getting any gas at all.  The European Union announced it will try to implement a "price corridor" to rein in soaring energy costs, after talks to cap natural gas prices ended without an agreement.In a meeting on Friday, the bloc scrambled to approve profit levies on energy companies, which will tax profits and redistribute them to households to help cover the soaring cost of energy. It also approved a mandatory 5% cut on electricity demand during peak hours.But just 15 nations in the 27-country bloc approved the proposal to cap gas prices, Reuters reported, and the EU needs unanimous approval for the measure to pass."We will … try to negotiate a price corridor, not a fixed cap, that allows us to bring down the costs for our consumers," EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said at a press hearing on Friday, though she did not give details about the range of prices being considered.European households have been hit with a spike in energy bills since Russia slashed gas flows to the continent this summer. Most recently, an apparent act of sabotage on the Nord Stream pipeline caused gas prices to surge another 11%, and European electricity prices are now more than 1000% above their levels a year ago. But some countries are against a price cap on natural gas – which is largely used to generate electricity – because it won't allow countries to compete against each other in the market, meaning some could have difficulty getting supplies at all."A fixed price cap on gas can only work if we answer the question of what happens if not enough gas comes to Europe … The only answer I hear is that then the amount would be divided up. I do not think that is politically possible," German economy minister Robert Habeck said, who opposed the measure.Variations of the price cap proposal were also considered, such as limiting the price cap to Russian gas, or only to gas used to generate electricity, but ended inconclusively. More pressure will be exerted on European leaders to take action as winter draws closer, especially as gas supplies are set to potentially tighten further into 2023.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

JPMorgan Chase & Co. told Reuters the megabank plans on hiring roughly 2,000 engineers worldwide by the end of 2022 despite the slowing global economy......»»

Turns out Americans aren't sitting on a big pile of savings to help them endure high inflation or another recession......»»